Propel 2019

Category: Opportunities

A recent study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Notre Dame found that women who maintain a close inner circle of other female friends are more likely to attain high-ranking leadership positions. Yang Yang,a research assistant professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and co-author of the study, says that “such an inner circle can provide trustworthy, gender-relevant information about job cultures and social support, which are very important to women in male-dominated settings.”In other words, successful women surround themselves with other successful women.

That’s exactly the ethos of The Propel Program, an initiative launched by The Garage to foster diversity and inclusion in entrepreneurship at Northwestern. Propel was made possible with the generous support of Steve Elms ‘92 MBA, and his wife, Katherine Elms, in partnership with the Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO). Under the guidance of Melissa Kaufman, executive director of The Garage, and Hayes Ferguson, associate director of The Garage, the Propel Program offers budding women entrepreneurs at Northwestern access to networking, mentorship, and immersive learning experiences, in addition to stipends to support their entrepreneurial projects.

Through the program, Propellers are able to connect with a network of Propel mentors, a group of ten female entrepreneurs with experience from a variety of industry backgrounds, from angel investing to hedge fund managing to bookselling—including two former Garage residents. Later in the year, Propellers will meet all together to trade notes on their project trajectories, and in June, they’ll share what they’ve been working on at a showcase open to the Northwestern community.

Yasmeena Faycurry, McCormick ‘22, says she’s excited about being a part of the Propel Program because it’s an incredibly unique resource. “I’m excited to have a community of women I can learn from, and I’m especially excited to work with a mentor, because it’s hard to find somebody who will help you no matter what.” Yuki Solomon, School of Communication ‘19, is working on a documentary film series about Chicago, and echoes the same excitement about the Propel community. She loves that “The Garage [is] innovative, progressive and dedicated to the power of sharing new ideas for the community and for the future.”

In Propel’s inaugural 2019 class, there are 24 students from a range of Northwestern undergraduate and graduate programs, from freshman engineers to second-year MBAs. Propel women are working on a diverse set of projects, VR technology, sustainable apparel manufacturing, and a CBD beverage company.

Get to know our 2019 Propel class and a snippet about their projects below:

Kimmie Carey, Kellogg ‘19

Her project: the dose co. is a functional food and beverage company dedicated to improving your well-being.

Her project: Mineral SPF aims to provide affordable, high quality sun protection delivered direct to consumer, and including education on when, how, and why to apply.

Sophie Davis, Weinberg ‘21

Her project (with Tarushi Sharma): to make waking up more refreshing experience through Lux, an IoT device that customizes a bright light sunrise to your sleep cycles.

Yasmeena Faycurry, McCormick ‘22

Her project: eliminating distance with VR technology.

Anim Haroon, Kellogg ‘20

Her project: to create a platform for teenage girls to find resources and mentorship.

Maja Ivanovic, Feinberg ‘20

Her project: to create an interactive course for health care students which focuses on business in medicine.

Cassidy Jackson, Medill ‘21

Her project: a podcast called “5-Minutes of Passion” that works to give listeners quick doses of passion from young adults just like them.

Isabella Jiao, Medill ‘19

Her project: Wearever curates and delivers clothing rental services to travelers who are unable to pack/source everything they want and need for a trip.

Emily Kvitko, Medill ‘19

Her project: Onesie, a digital magazine and app that features videos, photos and interactive stories on baby and toddler fashion and celebrates children up to age five for their creativity, curiosity and free spirits.

Ruge (Star) Li, Medill ‘19

Her project (with Zoey Qianren): C-art is a video content platform that makes art more accessible and fun by providing 1-3 minute educational and interactive videos about artwork.

Amie Liu, Kellogg ‘19

Her project: MyVillage is an app that helps parents streamline asking for help when the unexpected pops up.

Rachele Louis, Kellogg ‘19

Her project: LifeWeb, a social memory platform for collecting memories from your loved one’s community to create a 360 view of life after they’ve passed away, and to connect those who knew them in different ways.

Alice Lu, Pritzker ‘19

Her project: an incubator to develop a tailored training on Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) for law schools and legal clinics to contribute legal expertise towards the national conversation on TIC.

Regina Morfin, McCormick ‘21

Her project (with Avantika Raikar): facilitate the use of sustainable manufacturing processes in large scale apparel production.

Cara Morphew, Kellogg ‘19

Her project: BeenThere is a career prep and higher education application marketplace that connects applicants to current MBAs for detailed guidance and advice.

Aimee Ortega, School of Communication ‘20

Her project: Aimee Elise Sewing Studio, a contemporary space to learn and engage in the creative practice of sewing while building community along the way.

Zhao (Zoey) Qianren, Medill ‘19

Her project (with Star Li): C-art is a video content platform that makes art more accessible and fun by providing 1-3 minute educational and interactive videos about artwork.

Avantika Raikar, McCormick ‘22

Her project (with Regina Morfin): facilitate the use of sustainable manufacturing processes in large scale apparel production.

Elaine Ramirez, Medill ‘19

Her project: Prodos builds trust in blockchain technology through data-driven content and insights for business leaders.

Tess Russell, McCormick ‘20

Her project: provide a platform to help people recycle goods they never thought were recyclable and to make it easy to find recycling companies and locations for all types of products.

Tarushi Sharma, Weinberg ‘19

Her project (with Sophie Davis): to make waking up more refreshing experience through Lux, an IoT device that customizes a bright light sunrise to your sleep cycles.

Yuki Solomon, School of Communication ‘19

Her project: a documentary film series that captures the personal and public life of inspiring female figures here in the Windy City. Shot on an iPhone.

Colleen Zewe, Medill ‘19

Her project: a podcast about women’s health so that they will have information they need to feel empowered and in-charge of their own health and well-being.

As a snowstorm headed to campus on the eve of the Martin Luther King Day weekend, a crew from The Garage traveled to sunny Los Angeles for a weekend of entrepreneurial inspiration that included lunch with Gwyneth Paltrow and a tour of SpaceX.

The trip was part of the LittleJoeVentures Fellowship, a new program at Northwestern that promotes undergraduate entrepreneurship. Funded by alumnus Tony Owen and his wife, Monique, five fellowships are awarded to sophomores each year. As part of the program, launched last year, students receive mentorship, stipends and special experiences including the curated LA trip.

Our group of students, along with staffers Melissa Kaufman, Executive Director and Hayes Ferguson, Associate Director, arrived Thursday night at the Venice Beach Airbnb we’d call home for three days.

We kicked off Friday with the visit to SpaceX, the company Elon Musk founded to revolutionize space technology. You know you’re at a different kind of company when there’s a Falcon 9 rocket and a tower for the Boring Company’s tunnel in the parking lot.

The inside the building resembles a futuristic Willy Wonka factory. Mission control is immediately to the right. Parts of rockets that have returned from space are mounted to the ceiling. Our tour took us across the floor where technicians are building rockets. Almost every employee was wearing a piece of SpaceX swag, a nod to their strong, mission-driven culture.

Our second stop was goop, a lifestyle brand founded by actor/entrepreneur Gwyneth Paltrow. goop’s 275 employees are headquartered in Santa Monica in a cluster of nondescript, repurposed chicken coops. There’s no sign out front. Inside, the office — renovated by Restoration Hardware to give it a rustic, low-effort charm — buzzes with millenials. Some were typing furiously on Macs, others focused on a photoshoot of food and kitchenware.

Several executives joined us for lunch, describing their personal career paths and the evolution and goals of goop. Paltrow herself — or GP, as her staff calls her — was down to earth and accessible. She talked about her shift from acting to entrepreneurship — she said she’d always been an avid reader of The New York Times business section — and the challenges that come with running a company. She acknowledged “making a ton of mistakes” and learning from them, and reflected on the difficulty of navigating a startup through different stages as it grows from a family to a village to a city.

Our third and final stop of the day was at UTA (United Talent Agency). We heard from employees who had recently interned in the infamous “Mailroom,” a rite of passage for aspiring agents that involves menial tasks like sorting mail and fetching coffee. We also met with their Chief Innovation Officer, who described his experience as an intrapreneur.

The evening ended with an interactive cooking experience at the Airbnb led by a professional chef who is an entrepreneur herself. Lilia from Ella A Cooking, a UCLA graduate who left her job as an engineer to start her own cooking business a decade ago, shared lots of cooking tips including the proper way to dice an onion, how to roll pasta by hand, and how to make the sugar crust on creme brulee. (Hint: We used a blowtorch.)

The fellows gathered Saturday morning at Tony Owen’s sleek El Segundo office, which doubles as a showroom for his collection of antique cars. After hearing the stories behind the cars — including one of the first Tesla roadsters and a brand new Porsche 911 GT2 RS — we sat down for a series of conversations with three accomplished entrepreneurs: Matt Jacobson, Sam Prince, and Ami Dror.

The eighth employee at Facebook, Matt talked about the importance of visual imagery for creating culture; having hard conversations; and journaling. He shared his personal mantra — “Be the best part of someone else’s day” — and said that “the thing that screws you up most in life is the story in your head of how it’s supposed to be.”

Sam, a medical doctor who started Zambrero, an Australia-based chain of casual Mexican restaurants, talked about entrepreneurship as an activity that anyone can pursue. He reflected on his own journey as the son of Sri Lankan immigrants and talked about “courage in the face of uncertainty.” He also quoted Stephen Spielberg: “Intuition whispers in your ear, it rarely yells.”

Ami, a serial entrepreneur who served in the Israeli Secret Service early in his career, stressed the importance of being okay with failure. So much so that he encouraged the fellows to learn to fail and “become the biggest loser.” His point: If you fail, you just move on and try again. In his experience, the first product rarely worked and, on average, it was the third iteration that was a success. He offered two tips: 1. money cannot be the goal, 2. seek a mission-driven organization.

Following lunch, we strolled through Venice Beach and prepared for dinner with an impressive roster of alumni at Scopa. Among the Wildcats in attendance were Zico Coconut Water co-founder Maura Rampolla; executive recruiter Julie Puckett; and trustees Lynn Hopton and David Sachs. The networking and bonding was so much fun that no one wanted to leave!

To free up our two large tables for another group of diners, we finally wrapped things up and headed home to the Airbnb. The next morning, after a breakfast of bagels, yogurt and fruit, we headed to LAX for the flight back to snowy Chicago. The only hitch we encountered while traveling came as we went through security. Student after student was stopped so TSA agents could inspect their bags. The suspicious materials? The Salt Detox Bath Soak given to us by the folks at goop!

Principles of Entrepreneurship is a foundational course for students with limited or no prior exposure to business. Mondays & Wednesdays, 9 – 10:20 a.m. | ITW Classroom (1-340)

Engineering Entrepreneurship’s goal is to deepen and expand the understanding of entrepreneurship and innovation that students garner from taking Principles of Entrepreneurship, or from exploring entrepreneurship in another capacity. Mondays, 6 – 9 p.m. | The Garage Workspace

The Farley Center for Entrepreneurship’s offerings for Fall 2017 are now open!

NUvention classes are the flagship academic offerings, spanning several industries and verticals. Each is a one- or two-quarter, intensive course in ideating, developing and launching a business. Currently, there are NUvention courses in advanced materials, medical devices and technologies, clean energy, Web and media, social impact, the arts, analytics, and transportation. Explore the NUvention program.

Foundational courses offer in-depth exploration and application of the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. Undergraduate and graduate students may enroll. See a full list of foundational course offerings below.

In 1997, Michael Saunders noticed a growing need and problem faced among the University of Pennsylvania student body: students wanted to order food for delivery to their campus dorms and apartments using a fast, convenient method all online. He soon created CampusFood.com–a website for students living in college towns and cities to order their pizzas and take-out Chinese food from local restaurants for delivery on campus. A revolutionary idea: no picking up food at the restaurant, no more calling to place your order. With just a few clicks, students were able to get their favorite foods delivered to their doorsteps. Today, nearly 20 years later, CampusFood.com has merged with GrubHub and Seamless, becoming one of the most popular online food delivery services in the country.

Today, Michael is serving as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The Garage, and works on his own projects while offering his time and talents as a mentor and resource for student entrepreneurs. His experience creating CampusFood.com as a college student gives him optimal insight into the experience of student entrepreneurs at The Garage and positions him with an understanding insight into the world of student-founded startups.

Michael shared a few key points of advice for those looking to embark on their own startup journey while in school (and beyond, of course):

Talk to as many people as you can. Being in college can limit your perspective of the implications of your idea, so talking to more people can really broaden your perspective. And be willing to talk to people, instead of being protective of your ideas.

Identify realistic “next-step” goals. Don’t focus entirely on the end result; instead, make interim goals that are feasible to accomplish.

Identify people’s pain points and figure out how to alleviate them, because that’s what gets people excited and interested in using your product or service.

For more information about Micheal Saunders, and The Garage’s other current Entrepreneurs-In-Residence, click here. Stay tuned for our Winter 2017 Office Hours postings, too to schedule a one-on-one.

As you may know, The Garage is the new entrepreneurial hub for all Northwestern students on campus. But you ask yourself, I am already so busy with classes and clubs, why should I get involved with something else? Here are the top three reasons to come to The Garage and work on a startup.

1. Learn Real Teamwork.

Whether you hope to build innovative technology, discover the next medical breakthrough, or participate in the next Broadway sensation, you will be part of a team at The Garage. While working on your idea, you may need to hire and fire employees, manage difficult team dynamics, and learn to communicate in new ways. Edmond Lau, Quora Engineer explains, “Working effectively as part of a team is incredibly important for output quality, morale, and retention.”

You might already take classes that have team projects, but this is different. All team members on a class project have the same goal: getting a good grade, on both the content and team player aspects of the project, thus you might hold back and be more diplomatic because you are concerned about grades. In comparison, you come to The Garage because you are passionate about a project, so team dynamics can get hairy. Each team member’s goals may not be in sync, as team members may have differing visions and priorities to make the startup successful. Also, the class project ends after ten weeks, but the startup does not end unless you take action, and taking that action could be hard from both an interpersonal and financial perspective.

Motivational speaker Brian Tracy explains that, “Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.” So having the tools to work well on a team and to help build a team where opposing ideas are considered and yet all members are valued and work collaboratively will serve you well in any 21st century career.

2. Learn to Pitch.

Whether you are pitching your idea to fellow students to convince them to come work on your team, persuading your professor to be your mentor for your startup, or selling your idea to investors to raise capital, you will be practicing your pitch over and over. This is a great example of “practice makes perfect.” At The Garage, you will have plenty of opportunities to practice your pitch, from informal sessions at our Family Dinners and Office Hours, to the intensive-feedback sessions during Wildfire. You will learn to take facts and weave them into a story that engages the audience and ends with a call to action.

For some, pitching comes naturally and for others it is very uncomfortable, but it is an important skill that you will need in your career. You will need pitching proficiency to sell yourself in a job interview, to convince the team that your idea is the one the team should pursue, or even to sell your boss on giving you a raise.

Dan Schawbel, a New York Times bestselling author, describes why honing your pitching or sales skills is important: “If you don’t have sales skills, it’s hard to succeed at work because we are always selling. You have to sell yourself, your products and your ideas constantly. You have to influence those around you to take action or you won’t get very far … Selling is something we all do naturally but we can all improve on it.”

3. Learn to Fail, Recover, and Succeed.

At some point in your life, you will fail at something and it will be devastating. How will you cope? The Garage is a safe place to take risks, leave your comfort zone, try new things, struggle and then fail. Not just fail, but fail miserably–a huge colossal fail. It will feel bad, but you will be supported by The Garage community and we will celebrate that failure together.

During the process, you will learn the skills to evaluate the failure, develop a method to manage the uncomfortable feelings and learn the steps needed to improve. As Carol Diener, professor at University of Illinois and former graduate student of Carol Dweck, explains, “Failure is information—we label it failure, but it’s more like, ‘This didn’t work, I’m a problem solver, and I’ll try something else.’”

The skills to make any failure into a positive learning experience will serve you well throughout your life, no matter what career path you take. The former CTO of PayPal, Max Levchin, had the resiliency to fail multiple times and learn from each experience: “The very first company I started failed with a great bang. The second one failed a little bit less, but still failed. The third one, you know, proper failed, but it was kind of okay. I recovered quickly. Number four almost didn’t fail. It still didn’t really feel great, but it did okay. Number five was PayPal.”

While learning to cope with failure, collaborating with team members and honing your pitching skills you will get a taste of entrepreneurship. Not only are these skills important for whatever career path you choose, but at some point in your career, if you are working for someone else, you may wonder, should I go out on my own?

You tell yourself that you will have more independence and freedom, but know that entrepreneurship is risky. If you worked on building an idea during your time in college, you will have a sense as to whether entrepreneurship is for you and whether you have the risk tolerance and the drive to be an entrepreneur. Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator compares entrepreneurship to parenthood: “Like having a child, running a startup is the sort of experience that’s hard to imagine unless you’ve done it yourself.”

Come to The Garage and work on your ideas.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Elisa Mitchell is the Operations Manager at The Garage and enjoys helping each student start a unique entrepreneurial journey. She is an accomplished attorney and CPA and brings strong organizational skills, attention to detail and a can-do attitude to every project. She is thrilled to be a part of The Garage.

The Garage is excited to announce the teams accepted into the first batch of Radical Entrepreneurship with Wildfire.

There were 15 applications for up to six spots

The teams will be accelerated using the Scrum process

Teams will be assigned their own Growth Coach during the quarter

Teams will also be supported by students from the Segal Design Institute EDI program who will help the teams with customer discovery and prototyping

Demo Day will be held on April 13, where teams will be competing for $8k in prize money, sponsored by Exelon!

ENTREP395 Radical Entrepreneurship Wildfire Teams

Zcruit optimizes the college football recruiting process through predictive analytics, thus saving college football programs time and improving the quality of recruiting classes.

HearYe: Plan less, do more. HearYe is a mobile application that’s designed to organize casual group outings in an efficient way by allowing users to create, share, and communicate outing details on a central platform.

VertigōMetric Dx has developed a retinal-imaging medical device that rapidly helps an ER physician differentiate between a diagnosis of a non-life threatening issue and brainstorm stroke. Diagnosing this issue quickly will lead to tremendously better health outcomes for the patient while saving hospitals nearly a billion dollars annually. VertigoMetric Dxis led by an accomplished physician, a bioengineer, and a Kellogg MBA student.

HotPlate is an app designed to help you decide what to order at restaurants. Users can rate individual menu items, so that it is quick and easy to see the best dishes. HotPlate also allows users to see friends’ ratings, search by specific dish item, and receive tailored recommendations.

On Thursday, November 3, 2016, The Garage, alongside Northwestern Women in Business and Chime by Sittercity, welcomed the minds behind a new documentary, “She Started It,” for a special screening of the film, followed by a Q&A with the film’s director and producer, Nora Poggi, co-director and producer Insiyah Saeed, and Sheena Allen, an entrepreneur featured in the film.

More than 120 attendees, many of whom were women with a passion for entrepreneurship, joined us to follow the story of five young women as they pitch VCs, build teams, bring products to market, fail and start again in “She Started It.”

Today, 96 percent of venture capitalists are men; women still account for less than 10 percent of founders for high growth firms, and earn just 12.9 percent of computer science degrees. “She Started It” invited us to take a glimpse into this sometimes challenging world, but at The Garage, with a room full of women interested in this space, there is inspiration for the next generation to dream bigger.

At The Garage, we strive to build a community of diversity and support, and aim to energize women in tech and entrepreneurship to think bigger and to get involved in the startup world with the guidance, mentorship, and resources provided here. Now more than ever, we invite women involved in entrepreneurship and innovation to join us at The Garage.

The Forbes Under 30 Summit — a gathering of young entrepreneurs and game-changers — will be held this fall in Boston from October 16-19. The event will bring together VIPs from the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and mentors for panels, demonstrations, pitch contests, networking and performances.

This year Forbes is also introducing a new opportunity for the country’s top students: The Forbes Under 30 Scholars. Forbes has partnered with the nation’s top schools to give 1,000 of the best students a free pass to the Summit, with a content focus in their area of specialty, as well as complimentary lodging with host students in Boston. The Under 30 Scholars will also have the opportunity to meet one-on-one or in small groups with top recruiters from the best companies and startups in America.

The opportunity is open to juniors, seniors, and graduate students. A 3.3 minimum GPA is required. Students will be selected on a rolling basis. If you are interested in applying, follow this link to apply: http://goo.gl/forms/oZlfgjftPMl0ZTzh1

If you have any questions, you can contact Taylor Culliver, Program Coordinator at Forbes, at tculliver@forbes.com.

Steve Szaronos and Rishi Prabhu founded Bespoke Post in 2011 after being accepted into the Entrepreneur’s Roundtable Accelerator program and seeing an opportunity in the e-commerce market for a subscription service for men. Since raising $25,000 in seed funding, Bespoke Post has grown to become the leading lifestyle subscription and e-commerce service for men, delivering monthly “boxes of awesome” filled with quality products, like home bar essentials and shaving sets, to more than 100,000 subscribers in the U.S. and Canada. They most recently raised $8 million in funding in a Series A, and have built out a team of more than 40 employees headquartered in New York City.

Sarah Adler and Mackenzie Barth (both listed in Forbes 2018 30 Under 30) were juniors at Northwestern when they decided to start their own website combining their passion for journalism and food. Spoon University, a website to share recipes, stories, trends, and other food-related content launched in 2012 and grew to a 100-person student team at Northwestern’s campus within a year. Now, Spoon University has expanded into 250 universities with over 7,000 contributors. In May 2016, Scripps Networks Interactive acquired the company at a valuation of $11 million.

Sonali Lamba and Nicole Staple met their first year at Kellogg in 2010, and incorporated Brideside in 2012 with a major launch in 2014. Brideside reinvented wedding retail by providing an all-channel concierge service experience that eases the bridal party planning process. Their dedicated style consultants work closely with brides and bridesmaids to curate their vision from a collection of affordable and on-trend bridesmaid dresses and gifts. Their showrooms, digital tools and try at home program make it easy for bridal parties to coordinate, no matter where they live. Realizing Chicago has the largest wedding market by spend, Brideside opened their first brick-and-mortar in the Fulton River District. Since 2015, the company has raised $6.5M in funding and has launched four additional showroom locations. Brideside’s newest flagship location will open in NYC in November 2018.

Sam Shank founded HotelTonight, the on-demand hotel booking app, in 2011, which now has more than 30 millions downloads. Operating exclusively through mobile bookings, HotelTonight is the leading mobile app for hotel bookings last minute and beyond, ensuring there’s always a quality hotel room at the lowest possible rate in 1,700 cities and nearly 40 countries.

Standing in line with her husband at Chipotle one day in 2011, Elise Wetzel surveyed the fresh ingredients on the menu and the customized approach to each meal. And then she asked herself: Why couldn’t that same approach work for pizza? Elise is the co-founder of Blaze Pizza, a nationwide fast-casual pizza restaurant that has grown in popularity. The Northwestern alumna founded the chain in 2011 with her husband, Rick Wetzel, who co-founded Wetzel’s Pretzels. In the five years since, the company has added more than 200 restaurants across North America, captured A-list investors such as LeBron James and Maria Shriver, and secured brand-building partnerships with Project(RED), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. With annual sales now approaching $300 million, Wetzel believes Blaze will become a $1 billion brand by 2022.